Wayward Son
by xxliveforever17xx
Summary: Peter has always wanted a son...and it seems like he's found a very strange replacement in Neal Caffrey. A short musing on Peter and Neal's relationship, please review!


_Hey guys! White Collar came back last night and made my life complete again, so I thought I would write a quick little story on Peter and Neal's amazingly unique relationship, inspired in part by the song 'Wayward Son' by Kansas and a little clip of Tim DeKay talking about the two fictional characters' relationship. My writing ended up rambling a bit, so sorry about that.  
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_Anyways, hope you all enjoy! xx

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Peter Thomas Burke had always wanted a son.

Don't get him wrong - he loved Elizabeth with all his heart, and she was more than enough to keep him perfectly happy for the rest of his life, but there was always a part of him that felt almost empty. Just a little, tiny part, and he wasn't even aware of it most of the time, except for when he would pass by the park and see a father throwing around a baseball or football with his little boy. Then the longings for a child of his own would feel acute.

But recently, during the past year and a half, a peculiar thing had started to happen. He had begun looking at Neal Caffrey as an odd sort of replacement for a child.

It made sense really, seeing how Neal always managed to get himself into the most danger and trouble possible, and it was always Peter bailing him out like the dutiful and disapproving father.

It also didn't help that Elizabeth had named their still-born son Neal all those years ago (though that was a chapter in his life that he didn't like to dwell on).

Of course, he was absolutely loathe to admit any type of positive feelings towards the former con-man turned FBI consultant who was now his sort-of partner. But there was a particular dream he sometimes had, always the same, when he couldn't get into a deep enough REM cycle to have a proper sleep (the fact that a lack of sleep was now the norm was another thing he blamed Neal for). It was him, at Neal's funeral, with a crying Elizabeth on his arm. He would give the same speech in every dream - about how Neal was a wonderful partner, and a wonderful son.

Looking at it objectively, he realized it was a bit creepy to be having such a morbid dream, and about another man no less. According to his psychiatrist though (to whom he grudgingly told his dream to), it was perfectly normal to transfer unfulfilled tendencies of fatherhood to a figure who resembled the type of child he would have had.

Dear Saint Joseph, was that an awful prospect, to have had a child like Neal. Wayward, smarmy, smooth-talking, crooked, and a criminal - it would have broke Elizabeth's heart. Then again, she seemed to have taken very quickly to Neal. _She_ even referred to him as her child of sorts.

In many respects, Neal _was_ a child. He seemed to be oblivious to such simple and obvious protocols, and was far too precocious about other inconsequential things. He loved few people in the world, but was fiercely, to the point of borderline obsessive, protective of those he cared about.

Okay, maybe borderline obsessive was a bit of a stretch. That adjective seemed to only apply to Kate.

_Kate_. Peter winced at the mere thought of that woman. In all honesty, he wasn't entirely sure she was actually dead. He had Diana looking into it most surreptitiously. But the months following the plane blowing up were the worst he had ever gone through.

He had found Neal one too many times (after busting down the door, much to June's continuous dismay) sitting precariously on the ledge of his balcony, a bottle (or two or three) of beer perched around him as he rolled a wine bottle around in his hands.

Kate's bottle.

"Whatcha doing, Caffrey?" he would always ask in that low, calming tone he used on potential suspects or flighty witnesses. And then he would slowly take Neal's arms and hoist him down from the ledge, not letting go until the young man's feet were firmly on the ground.

"I was thinking, Peter. There's no need for hysterics," Neal would say back quite calmly, his eyes looking Peter back and down with a sort of haughty disapproval at the notion that Peter would even think something as absurd as him committing suicide. But there was a pain that he could detect behind those blue eyes that betrayed the depth of Neal's sorrow and instability.

So he would sit with him, at the mahogany table in Neal's kitchenette, drinking criminally expensive wine in silence.

It had been six months after those harrowing nights, and they hadn't talked about the immediate aftermath of that explosion on Neal's psyche. Something inside Peter told him they never would (which was more than okay with him, since he hated talking).

There were days that he would literally hit his forehead in astonishment at the pranks Neal pulled. In broad daylight. In the middle of downtown Manhattan. Surrounded by at least 200 federal agents. It was like he was the obliging parent making excuses for his teenage son -

"Yes, Director Hughes, I realize Caffrey jumped out of a ten-story building onto an awning that collapsed on public property and will cost the FBI thousands in damages, but you can't blame him, can you? He's just being a kid. That's what kids do."

And somehow it would all work out, the both of them coming out of Neal's escapades scotch-free...well, usually scotch-free.

Wayward indeed - Neal was like the wayward son. _His_ wayward son. Never mind the fact that he was only eleven years older than him. Okay, maybe more like thirteen. Seriously, how old was Neal _really_? Half the information in his file wasn't even true.

Against all odds, the acute fatherly pangs in his chest had subsided to a dull ache. And he suspected, albeit very grudgingly, that they would continue to diminish with each passing day that he worked with Neal.

Because, after all, a man's gotta have something to keep him on his toes, right?

And what better than a pseudo-adopted son?


End file.
